Under the Sea

Well, I'm just bloggin' 'cause I'm sittin' here waitin' for an answer to an online question. Wanted to show a few underwater creatures, and wonder why folks like fish, turtles, frogs, shells, starfish, mermaids and other things so much. And what other underwater creatures can I make? I did make a squid once- well, twice really, because I didn't like the first one. Anyway, here are a few of my current favs.

Flower Tut is Finally Finished!

I finally got it done and ready to sell in my etsy shop- a tutorial about making four different kinds of glass flowers- a lily or star flower, an aster, a simple iris and a fancy lady's slipper orchid. So here's the link to that:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45703612/lampwork-glass-flower-bead-tutorial-lily

A Surprise Publication

Yesterday I was making my way through the new books at the library, when I saw a book called Earrings, Earrings, Earrings pulished by House of White Birches books. As I was flipping through it to see if I needed to check it out, I flashed by a pair of earrings. And then I went to that page again- there was something about those beads.....
Thanks to a wonderful jewelry maker named Ishita Ghosh, there were a pair of earrings and a matching bracelet using a few of my 'earthy' style beads- a very short- lived phase in my bead making history. Ishita bought some beads form me a couple of years ago, after we connected thanks to an article about her on the Artbeadscene blog. These are the beads she purchased

Here's Ishita's website, so you can see some more wonderful examples of her work:

http://www.gianani.com/

Here's a link to the actual piece that was in the publication:

http://www.gianani.com/asseen.html

Thanks to everyone involved for this!

Orchids and other flowers

Well, I've been working on three dimensional flowers lately. It's something I've played with from time to time over the years. Since I haven't really seen anything that looks like the ones I make, I've been taking pictures and started writing a tutorial. I've written lots of mini tuts and published them here, but never tried a big old tut.

The tut I'm currently writing will start with a simple lily, then graduate to a purple aster-like flower that has two rows of petals. But yesterday I finally got to work making something really over the top. This is the flower I want to include instructions for as the final piece in the tut. The two I made yesterday turned out quite nice. I'm hoping to be able to do it again, and refine it just a little for the sake of speed and ease. But I was so happy with these- they are kind of big for me- between 1 and 1 1/2 inches across. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but it looks HUGE in real life.

The tut and a couple of the flower beads are going to be a part of the ISGB auction next month. I think they'll be up for sale in the last week of the auction. If you haven't heard about that auction, keep your eyes peeled for news. I'll post something here when it begins. There are going to be a lot of amazing pieces for sale, by a lot of wonderful lampworkers- and me! And it's all to benefit the International Society of Glass Beadmakers.